


Imperfect

by travels_in_time



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-10
Updated: 2010-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-12 14:19:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/travels_in_time/pseuds/travels_in_time
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slightly different view of events at the end of LoM.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imperfect

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Трещина](https://archiveofourown.org/works/630276) by [Rainy_Elliot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainy_Elliot/pseuds/Rainy_Elliot)



> Archive warning refers to the major character death as told to us in _Ashes to Ashes_ 1.1. No further spoilers beyond that.

When Gene was small, his mum served him his tea in a cup with a crack running down the side. It had always been that way since Gene could remember, but it didn't leak, it wasn't chipped; you had to be sharp-eyed to spot the flaw.

It wasn't like their other crockery, thick and cheap and factory-produced. Posh, his dad called it, as if that were a bad word. It was the last of a set that had been given to his grandma for her wedding, his mum said, and he was to take good care of it. He wondered if it shouldn't be put away safely somewhere. "What good would that be?" his mum said. "It's a cup. It's meant to be used." But he noticed that she never gave it to his dad, or to Stu.

***********************

It isn't tea Gene's sipping now, sitting in his DI's flat and watching him sleep. Sam is sprawled all over the bed with childish abandon. Gene's not sleepy. He ought to be. He's had a busy day, what with one thing and another. Having his team turned upside down and inside out by that same DI. Being set up. Getting shot.

He'd stomped--well, limped, more like--out of the hospital against doctor's orders and his team's protests. He'd ignored the doctor and shut his team up by threatening to make them go back to the office and finish sorting out the paperwork. They'd agreed hastily that the Railway Arms was a better option. Well, all but Sam, who was even more wound up than usual and wouldn't shut up about mixing painkillers and alcohol. They'd had a minor difference of opinion over that in the hospital parking lot which left Sam wiping blood off his mouth and Gene on the ground clutching his leg. Sam's kick hadn't actually unbalanced him that much, but it left Sam feeling guilty enough to agree to drive him to the pub, which was what Gene had intended.

Once there, the rest of CID settled down to do serious damage to Nelson's stock, but Sam didn't. He was still jumpy, restless, constantly looking around like he wasn't sure where he was. Gene figured he knew why, and he and Sam were going to have to sort this Morgan mess out before long, but for now they were all alive and _there_ , and that was enough.

Gene stayed just long enough for his team to get the point that the Guv was all right, and then he got Sam to drive him home. Only they wound up at Sam's flat instead, raiding his stash of bottles from one of the kitchen cabinets.

Being drunk makes Sam talkative. Gene remembers that far too late.

***********************

Over time, the crack in the cup spread. Split off, formed a network of many more tiny cracks, nearly invisible unless Gene looked closely. He spent many afternoons over tea looking for patterns in the spiderwebbing, finding pictures in the random-seeming lines. The pictures changed whenever he looked at the cup from a different angle. It was almost like a puzzle to solve.

***********************

Gene's still not sure exactly what's been happening with Sam. It's too bloody complicated. He wasn't going to bring it up tonight, but Sam is eager to talk about it, more so than Gene expected. But the more Sam talks, the more uneasy Gene gets. Sam says he doesn't remember being Williams, says he never _was_ Williams. He's insistent that he's Sam Tyler, and when Gene points out that there's no evidence that Sam Tyler ever existed, besides the faked papers that Morgan sent with him, Sam starts babbling about 2006 and comas and time travel.

Gene's heard some of it before, from Annie, but he'd chalked it up to Sam angling for a sympathy shag, playing up to her worry about the accident he'd had when he arrived. Annie hadn't managed to convey the utter sincerity in Sam's voice, the eerie intensity in his eyes. Sam _believes_ what he's saying, and it brings back memories of all the other weird stuff Sam's said and done since he arrived. This isn't a new problem, Gene slowly realises. He's trying to believe that it was Morgan's interference that's put Sam off-balance for tonight, and maybe that's true to an extent, but Gene's been ignoring the signals ever since Sam arrived. Sam came to them already cracked, and maybe it's time for Gene to admit it.

What really catches his attention is when Sam describes how he got "back" to 1973. He's convinced he was in the future somehow, gone for months instead of only a few moments. That's something else that ought to concern Gene, but he's too busy watching the huge grin on Sam's face as he gleefully tells Gene about leaping off the roof of the station. "I fixed it. It was all wrong, I didn't belong there, that wasn't my life anymore, and I fixed it."

And that brings back memories of the end of Sam's first case, on the roof--more of what Annie's tried to tell him, and that he's ignored. Then there was the accident that Sam was in, on his way from Hyde. They never did find out anything about that. Nothing beyond that panicked phone call they'd gotten at the station. "This man just walked right out in front of me car, I couldn't stop in time, he's alive but you'd better come check on him--" Plod had found Sam, but whoever'd hit him had understandably done a bunk, and Sam didn't remember anything about it.

Quick on the heels of that, Gene remembers every time--far too often, now he thinks of it, far beyond normal chance--that Sam's wound up on the wrong end of a gun. The time with Cole flashes through his mind with particular clarity--Sam, kneeling on the floor, gun pressed to his temple...smiling.

Smiling like he's smiling now, telling Gene how he found a solution to end a life he didn't want.

Gene looks at Sam, and he sees a twelve-year-old boy who's still desperately trying to find a world to live in that suits him. A boy who thinks he's found a way to remake the world by resetting himself. Gene sees the pattern in the cracks that he's been trying so hard to ignore, and he shivers.

************************

It was stupid to get attached to a piece of china. But he was young, after all, and it made him feel good to be trusted. The cup was _his_ , in a way. His to protect and look after. It was fragile, and he'd promised to take care of it.

Gene hadn't learned, then, that there are promises you can't keep.

***********************

Sam had finally talked himself to sleep, and now Gene's finishing the rest of the bottle, painkillers be damned. Still watching Sam. He looks so young, relaxed against the tangled bedclothes. He always has looked too young for his years. Gene understands why, now.

He considers his options, and realises that there aren't any, not really. The safest thing for Sam would be to have him committed. But Sam loves being a copper, and he's good at it, when he's not clutching at his head and yelling at the ceiling. Irritating as all hell, but good at it. Solving cases keeps him focused, gives him something to live for. Locking him up would only worsen the damage that was done long ago.

Gene knows what he'll have to do. Keep an eye on Sam. Keep him away from rooftops, and loaded guns, although how he'll manage that in their line of work is anybody's guess. Keep him busy, and occupied, and hope that he doesn't get tired of life as Sam Tyler in 1973. Watch the cracks, and hope they don't spread too far, or too fast.

***********************

In the end, nothing very exciting or dramatic happened to the cup. No one dropped it during the washing-up or threw it against the wall in a rage. Gene poured tea into it one day just as usual, and it fell apart in his hand.

And in the end, it's not a loaded gun, or a rooftop, that shatters Sam.

"Not your fault, luv." Gene's standing by the canal, staring out over the dark water, hearing his mother's words again from that day he'd brought the pieces to her. "Was worn out, that's all. Couldn't hold together anymore. Nothing you could've done."

He knows it's true. But it didn't help then, and it doesn't help now.


End file.
